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I think any advocate who is effective has fully acquainted himself or herself with the legislator they are going to meet. Know what committees they are on, what issues they are interested in, all in an effort to build a bridge for communicating with them.

Mark Shields

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Mark Shields
Age: 87
Born: 1937
Born: May 25
Columnist
Writer
Weymouth
Massachusetts
Mark Stephen Shields
Meet
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Interested
Committees
Issues
Bridge
Effort
Bridges
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Legislators

More quotes by Mark Shields

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You've got people who didn't serve with John Kerry saying they did serve with John Kerry in the boat. With George Bush, we can't find anybody who did serve with him.
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It's both strategic, to get people's minds off other things, and to pick an internal enemy. It's part of [Donald Trump's] psychodynamics to always care about his press coverage intensely. He's more interested in that than anything else.
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John McCain has become the de facto running mate of George W. Bush.
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The measure of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, but whether, as Franklin Roosevelt said, we provide enough for those who have too little.
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Mitt Romney was the man who stood up to Donald Trump early, hard, never wavered.
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America's exceptionalism, American leadership, the American model, the American values are not [first with Donald Trump] - they're something that end at the border.
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We have weakened the parties and strengthened all the special interests.
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It's interesting how identity politics and Ann Coulter-style tactics have now blossomed. But they were always there in CPAC.
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[The Republicans] looked at basically the failed wars and they said, oh, this, us being the policeman of the world, that is not working.
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Being a party chair, you really have a chance to make a difference. but what the Democrats have to do is recognize and accept the fact that they're at their lowest point [in 2017] since 1928 in the United States House of Representatives and their lowest point since 1925 in states.
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The pattern of American presidential elections is that the more optimistic candidate, whether it's John Kennedy and let's get America moving again, Ronald Reagan, it's morning in America, or Barack Obama, yes, we can, always wins, or nearly always wins.
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I mean, this is a group [Republicans], don't forget, that gave its presidential straw ballot to Ron Paul, Ron Paul, and Rand Paul and Rand Paul. So, they have abandoned what - their libertarian values and instincts to embrace [Donald] Trump.
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He who speaks the truth must keep one foot in the stirrup.
Mark Shields
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I thought Mike Pence, upon reflection to me, came across a little bit like your favorite aunt who refuses, in spite of first-person evidence that grandpa has been drunk and disorderly in public, that, says, no, no, grandpa would never do that, even though grandpa is being taken off in handcuffs.
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Big money buys access in Washington, and access purchases influence. It is as simple as that. And they have basically given a green light, a further green light, after Citizens United, to the biggest money to have the bigger voice in our politics, and to sound out and drown out the voice of just ordinary citizens.
Mark Shields
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There is a cleavage and a divide in America like I have never seen before.
Mark Shields
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If you only make fights that you're going to win, there would be no women's vote in America, there would be no civil rights laws in the country.
Mark Shields
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Critics of Donald Trump take him literally, but not seriously. His supporters take him seriously, but not literally.
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Donald Trump is not an unintelligent man.
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The Democrats have tried the war against women in the past. It didn't really have that much traction.
Mark Shields